Tag Archives: The Underground Bunker

The New York Times recently covered some interesting phenomena that is happening online, see Frank Bruni – How Facebook Warps Our Worlds. Bruni observes that our newfound abilities to facilely pick villains, jump to judgments and duck/cluster with like-opinionated people (all without showing our faces or even necessarily identifying ourselves) has led to some creepy results. You can see how some of that has played out in the world of scientology – where kettles and pots are becoming increasingly indistinguishable – at the following links:

Tony Ortega’s blogging campaign against my wife Monique and me over the past three months has resulted in the largest wave of hate we have experienced in several years. We even saw that an erstwhile friend published an unsolicited psychiatric evaluation (including still more falsehoods) to explain our behavior as characterized by Ortega. The following descriptions of Monique (some referred to both her and me) written by Bunker regulars and published by Ortega pretty much sum up the sentiments Ortega has fueled:

“Sympathy? I has none.

Monique, no respect. NONE. Sympathy? Nope. I never want to hear from these losers again

subservience , irrationality, and paranoia

Marty and Miscavige are cut from the same cloth. And Monique? Well, she did marry the guy.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Rathbuns name would surface somewhere in the future when some stuff like the “Panama-papers” are leaked again.

classless and nasty (both)

Mosey has fallen under thrall of whatever fixed delusion he is living under.

Somehow they were turned, Whether from threats or payoffs or some combination of the two.

I hope like hell the next Rathbun post will be how Mosey blew the ranch and escaped from Marty.

Either Monique is drinking Marty’s kool aid or I think the next thing we will hear about is a divorce.

The Rathbuns are as mentally ill as Scientology.

I’m very much afraid that the one who is going to end up rueing the day is Monique.

Well, she does heve to wake up next to Mr Scilon Warrior every day… I don’t envy her that..

I find it hard to maintain any respect or trust for them at this point.”

For those Bunkeroos already sold on Tony’s sexist pitch that Monique is incapable of making decisions of her own, the comments describing me included: “a burning train wreck, a fictional Nazi, a hanging judge, a mini-Hubbard, callous and unrepentant, boy, He’s nuts!, an asshole, FUCKIN DELUSIONAL, Marty doesn’t seem stable, an old alter ego who now embraces Hubbard’s paranoia even worse than before, He may or may not be a sociopath…He is certainly narcissistic and has other qualities that are borderline at the very least, I really think Marty has gone off the deep end too, a little mental illness, he is still “living in his head,”MR loves MR alright – but both stand for Mark Rathbun…He has never stopped playing footsie with his ex-boyfriend, He’s a sack of shit, an asshat selfish prick, some serious fuckery, Marty went nuts, My opinion is that Marty has gone over the edge and is behaving very self-destructively (unfortunately now with people to drag down with him), This appears to be a battle of two narcissists, I believe his hands got very dirty.” And finally, “I don’t think Marty is stable and that is not an environment to raise a child in.”

In this whirlwind of hysteria that became the Bunker comments section a few days ago, a singularly dissident voice interrupted, briefly. It was not rude. It was not assertive. It merely posed a question. The comment was not made by a friend or ally of ours. It was made by Alanzo, a long-time scientology critic who has unloaded quite a bit of criticism on me over the years. I thought it was interesting how quickly Bunkeroos sought to label him a troll and dismiss his apparently dangerous, if simple, thought. I re-publish it below for two reasons. I believe that standing alone it serves as a textbook study in phenomena we have explored in-depth on this blog (see e.g., Culture of Complaint, Good vs. Evil, Vortex of Hate, etc). The second reason for re-publishing, which serves to reinforce the first reason, is that Tony Ortega took it upon himself to censor this thread. He left in the plethora of ill-mannered demands for Monique’s and my necks. But, he deleted and censored Alanzo.

The deleted/censored thread:

Alanzo

Tony wrote: “In a bizarre document, Monique makes accusations that her former attorneys — Ray Jeffrey, Marc Wiegand, Elliott Cappuccio, and Leslie Hyman — had made it “abundantly clear” that the lawsuit was “not worth it financially,” and that the attorneys had filed defective paperwork that allowed Scientology’s attorneys to file appeals that caused delay.

Note Tony’s word “bizarre” used above to describe the document.

Is this Tony’s bias, or is he just reporting the facts?

Alanzo

chukicita Alanzo • 29 minutes ago

Perhaps it’s a bit of both. Certainly it’s not a typical document, and the accusations are unexpected and unusual. What word would you have used to describe it?

This is a blog, not a newspaper, and I think Tony does an excellent job of bringing the facts to light and keeping his opinions in check at times, even though he doesn’t have to.

Alanzo chukicita • 4 minutes ago

I think that the document has to perform an abrupt change in a course of action, and that it should be allowed to speak for itself.

Because this is a blog, and not a newspaper which is supposed to be more objective, I think it is even more important to question Tony’s opinions and to be on the look out for his bias on things and to remember that he has no corner on the truth. Other viewpoints and other opinions exist besides Tony Ortega’s, and sometimes those differing opinions shed more light on the truth, and on Scientology, than Tony Ortega could ever muster.

Everyone is biased in favor of Ray Jeffrey here, and his team of lawyers. And we even have another lawyer as an “expert” giving his opinion about the criticisms of Ray Jeffrey, which, unsurprisingly, are very “pro-lawyer”.

Maybe Monique presented a document to the court which was true, and the criticisms of her former attorneys were justified. Why else would such abrupt action need to be taken? Perhaps we should ask Mr Occam, too?

Do clients normally never disagree with the course of actions taken by their attorneys unless they are insane as Tony and Texas Lawyer have both intimated? Do Tony, or even Texas Lawyer, know the particular situation with her lawyers better than Monique?

No.

So I think this is exactly where Tony, and Texas Lawyer, should keep their biases to themselves. And if they are unable to do that, those biases should be highlighted, and questioned by the “commenting community” here.

That is, if the commenting community here cares about the truth.

Alanzo

L Wrong Hubturd Alanzo • 14 minutes ago

5 comments, 6 votes. I do not think you are the real “Alanzo”

Alanzo L. Wrong Hubturd • 5 minutes ago

Yes. I am the Real Alanzo. I went into retirement last year when I got news that my best friend had cancer, and I could not imagine wasting my time on anything related to Scientology ever again. So I whacked all my accounts.

But my friend has gotten radiation and chemotherapy and it has lengthened the amount of life he has left to live, and so I felt I could afford a little more Scientology in my life.

chukicita • 15 minutes ago

Additionally, I think the knee-jerk reaction that somehow Monique was being called insane was not useful at all.

The *behavior* of firing successful lawyers was, in the absence of other information, being called out as inconsistent with the original goals of the lawsuit. Reading over the original blog post, no one called *Monique* insane.

chukicita • 19 minutes ago

I think it’s important to look at the pattern of behavior that at least on the surface seems to be a thread of cohesion in some litigation that involves Scientology. Perhaps Dr. Occam could call up Bob Minton and Ken Dandar.

If you have facts that contradict, why not offer them up?

L Wrong Hubturd chukicita • 12 minutes ago

I do not think think this is the Alonzo you think it is. I think we have an impostor, here to stir the pot.

Alanzo L. Wrong Hubturd • 3 minutes ago

Oh, make no mistake: I am here to stir the pot.

Obviously you don’t know the Real Alanzo.

Alanzo

ze moo • 29 minutes ago

No the word bizarre does fit the situation. This filing shows some no longer pent up anger and distrust of the lawyers involved. The client is not always right, but they do have approve what their lawyers do. It seems that a simmering disagreement has boiled over and this is the result.

It is bizarre to fire your lawyers when they are on a roll. All of the delays and appeals were foreseeable and should have been planed on.

While the legal work is over in this case, the story is not over yet.

Alanzo ze moo • 15 minutes ago

The pay out of this suit was never going to be unlimited. If you look at Monique’s document as a statement of non-viability of the economics of the lawsuit, I do not think it is bizarre at all.

And I think your description of a “simmering disagreement has boiled over and this is the result.” is pretty accurate. I think Marty has pretty good experience with how Church lawyers operate, and Marty and Monique might not have been listened to as closely as they should have been.

And since Monique stated that they were able to achieve outside of the court what the lawsuit sought to achieve in the court, she dropped the suit.

The most active ingredient in scientology is not of scientology. It was with us long before L. Ron Hubbard. It has evolved and will continue to long after scientology ceases to attract headlines. The seed of scientology’s rise and fall is Hubbard’s and scientology’s manic efforts and extreme measures taken to bottle and own and sell it (reference ‘Truth’). This point is fleshed out a bit more in the latest post at the The Underground Bunker.

It is discussed in greater detail with Larry Flick on the Morning Jolt on sirius xm. To listen to it do the following:

Russell Miller’s book is finally going to be published in the U.S. apparently. An interview with Miller was posted on Tony Ortega’s blog this morning. I read the book last year. I actually thought I had read it back in the eighties when it was published. After all, I helped direct and coordinate the abusive litigation tactics that drove his U.S. publisher into dropping the project. When I read the book, I recognized that in fact I had never read it all those years back. It was lingering cult delusion that made me think I had. In the eighties I had only read summaries and ‘dead agent’ packs compiled by Office of Special Affairs. Even in the past couple years I have referred to Miller as a propagandist; that was before actually having read the book. What I found remarkable about the thorough read I did was how balanced and even-handed Miller was about L. Ron Hubbard. It is not a wholesale condemnation. While I don’t attest to the accuracy of all his facts, for the most part the book covers a lot of irrefutable history pretty accurately.

As Miller noted in his interview, the nature of the legal attacks upon the book, similar to the defenses in Rathbun v. Miscavige incidentally, revolve around strained (read invented) intellectual property rights theories. If the book were inherently dishonest there would have been claims based on defamation theories. But as we have noted previously, to Scientology the purpose of the suit is to not to win, but instead to harass.

Mr. Miller makes reference to a profanity-laced Scientology outburst about the book during the legal proceedings. The actual quotation is interesting. It is a quotation from the deposition of Norman F. Starkey, then executor of the estate of L. Ron Hubbard. It appears in the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York Opinion:

2. Norman Starkey, the Executor of Hubbard’s estate who licensed plaintiff to exploit the Hubbard copyrights stated in his deposition: “That scum bag book is full of bullshit, man, and you know it. It is full of bullshit…. goddam, fucking bullshit.” (Gready Aff.Exh. A, p. 94.)

If you think that language is strong, you should have heard Miscavige’s reaction to Starkey nearly blowing millions of dollars of litigation fees on that one infantile, albeit honest, outburst. One of the most remarkable feats in the litigation was overcoming that clear evidence that the real Scientology complaint about Miller’s book was that it did not like the facts being aired, and not that it was suffering any harm by having copyrighted works quoted. But, again as Miller notes the U.S. legal system has some flaws, and Scientology has perfected the ruthless, if expensive, exploitation of them.

As to the man in the red sports car following Mr. Miller in Los Angeles, that in fact was the infamous Eugene M. Ingram. Ingram made so much Scientology money by his aggressive, noisy investigative tactics that he bought himself two shiny new sports cars (a Mitsubishi 3000GT and a Lotus Esprit), one with gold-plated mag hubs. In his inimitable style he wore loud, flashy Hawaiian shirts during his stake outs with those bright low riders. When I reported on the flap of Ingram being so easily and regularly made because of his audacious ways, David Miscavige ordered that Ingram be encouraged to be even more loud and noticeable, ‘it’s supposed to be a noisy investigation, isn’t it?’ Incidentally, that is what ‘ensuring the orthodox practice of the scriptures’ that Scientology lawyers are paid so much to repeat interminably is all about.

I apologize publicly to Mr. Miller for my involvement in the investigative tactics designed to shudder him into silence, and the unlawful abuse of legal process to block publication in the United States and cost his publishers inordinate sums in other countries.

I encourage people to purchase his book once available and read it. Not just because it will make me feel a bit better about my own efforts to suppress it, but because I believe it is essential reading for anyone involved with Scientology.

Jefferson Hawkins began an insightful deconstruction of Scientology ethics in an interview with Tony Ortega at his Scientology Underground Bunker page. I believe the techniques Jeff exposed had (have) broader application in the process that Scientology employs in implanting its constructs as hard-bound reality. It is not limited to the indoctrination on ethics. I had noted this myself while spending several months of each day listening to a Hubbard lecture from the fifties and sixties.

In an early chapter of The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra gives an accurate and concise history of the evolution of logic and thought in the West and the East. In doing so, he necessarily mentions virtually every significant philosopher who lived and wrote over the past couple millennia. I read that after the stint of listening to dozens of Hubbard lectures given over a two decade period. Here is my contemporaneous margin note at the end of the chapter on evolution of thought in The Tao of Physics:

‘By this point (20th Century) in history, Hubbard has invalidated and laid to waste every great thinker who made possible and contributed to his way of thinking.’

One might recognize that Hubbard’s techniques of persuasion are used far and wide in today’s society. In politics, in business, in advertising, in self-help, in religion, you name it. Whether one wants to label it ‘hypnotism’ or ‘how to influence people’ or ‘persuasion’, it cannot be gainsaid that the technique of indoctrination Jeff breaks down for us was employed throughout the history of Dianetics and Scientology. And L. Ron Hubbard was a master of it application.